Activists have exposed startling forms of labor exploitation and environmental degradation in global industries, leading many large retailers and brands to adopt standards for fairness and sustainability. This book is about the idea that transnational corporations can push these standards through their global supply chains, and in effect, pull factories, forests, and farms out of their local contexts and up to global best practices. For many scholars and practitioners, this kind of private regulation and global standard-setting can provide an alternative to regulation by territorially-bound, gridlocked, or incapacitated nation states, potentially improving environments and working conditions around the world and protecting the rights of exploited workers, impoverished farmers, and marginalized communities. But can private, voluntary standards actually create meaningful forms of regulation? Are forests and factories around the world actually being made into sustainable ecosystems and decent workplaces? Can global norms remake local orders?

This book provides striking new answers by comparing the private regulation of land and labor in democratic and authoritarian settings. Case studies of sustainable forestry and fair labour standards in Indonesia and China show not only how transnational standards are implemented ‘on the ground’ but also how they are constrained and reconfigured by domestic governance. Combining rich multi-method analyses, a powerful comparative approach, and a new theory of private regulation, Rules without Rights reveals the contours and contradictions of transnational governance.

Prophets and Patriots takes readers inside two of the most active populist movements of the Obama era and highlights cultural convergences and contradictions at the heart of American political life. In the wake of the Great Recession and amid rising discontent with government responsiveness to ordinary citizens, the book follows participants in two very different groups—a progressive faith-based community organization and a conservative Tea Party group—as they set out to become active and informed citizens, put their faith into action, and hold government accountable. Both groups viewed themselves as the latest in a long line of prophetic voices and patriotic heroes who were carrying forward the promise of the American democratic project. Yet the ways in which each group put this common vision into practice reflected very different understandings of American democracy and citizenship.

This book offers an innovative perspective on the ever-widening gap between the poor and the state in Latin American politics. It presents a comprehensive analysis of the main social movement that mobilized the poor and unemployed people of Argentina to end neoliberalism and to attain incorporation into a more inclusive and equal society. The piquetero (picketer) movement is the largest movement of unemployed people in the world. This movement has transformed Argentine politics to the extent of becoming part of the governing coalition for more than a decade. Rossi argues that the movement has been part of a long-term struggle by the poor for socio-political participation in the polity after having been excluded by authoritarian regimes and neoliberal reforms. He conceptualizes this process as a wave of incorporation, exploring the characteristics of this major redefinition of politics in Latin America.

The Department of Sociology (http://coss.fsu.edu/sociology) invites applications for a tenure track assistant professor position, effective August 2018. We are looking for a scholar with expertise in political sociology and/or social policy who will build on our department’s strengths in inequalities and social justice, health and aging, and demography. Those who study the US or international contexts are equally encouraged to apply. Applicants should submit a letter of application indicating their relevant research and teaching interests, a curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information for three references. Materials should be sent in PDF format to sociology@fsu.edu by September 30, 2017. Questions may be directed to the department chair (jrreynolds@fsu.edu).

Florida State University is a Carnegie Foundation-classified Research I institution. Among its 42,000 students are 8,500 graduate students pursuing over 200 programs of study. Tallahassee is Florida’s capital city, with a metropolitan population of over 375,000. Its principal employers are state government and three higher education institutions, including an HBCU. Florida State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, and we strongly encourage racial/ethnic minority applicants to apply.

Are you interested in forming an ASA Section on the Sociology of Reproduction? An increasing number of sociologists are studying reproduction by conducting research on topics such as pregnancy, labor, birth, abortion, contraception, prenatal testing, assisted reproductive technologies, and infertility. Further, the sociological study of reproduction is a critical place of feminist research. Here are a few reasons why an ASA Section on the Sociology of Reproduction is a good idea:

According to ASA, “Sections are great for networking with your colleagues and keeping up to date with new developments in your field. Sections write newsletters, conduct panels, receptions and sessions at the Annual Meeting, and connect their members daily through listservs, websites and social media outlets.”

ASA sections have official recognition as legitimate areas of sociological inquiry, which helps individuals pitch new courses to teach, request new faculty positions, and legitimate their own research agenda within the area.

There is a proposal before the ASA Council to increase the number of sessions controlled by the sections. Such a shift, which appears to have the support of ASA staff, would make it increasingly unlikely that we would be able to continue getting 4-5 regular ASA sessions (as we did in 2017), but also more likely that small sections, such as a section on the Sociology of Reproduction, would be able to get more than the 2 ASA sessions currently promised.

To form a new section, we need to collect 200 signatures of current ASA members on a petition in which the signer agrees, if the section is formed, to pay dues to the section for two years. Dues are typically $5-$10/year.

The Negotiating Agreement in Congress Research Grants are aimed at scholars who seek to understand the conditions under which political negotiation can be achieved (or not achieved) in Congress and other legislative arenas. The grants provide up to $10,000 of funding for each awardee, to be used for up to one year of research and writing. Applicants must have a PhD in hand by the application deadline and must hold an affiliation with a college or university based in the United States. For more information, please visit www.ssrc.org/nacg or contact democracy@ssrc.org.

Deadline: Sept 15

Eligibility: Applicants must have a PhD in hand by the application deadline and must hold an affiliation with a college or university based in the United States. Additional criteria can be found on our website.

ISA session being organized — “Non-union class struggles from below” — Session of the ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto. Organized by Marcel Paret (University of Utah and University of Johannesburg)

While many observers lament the declining significance and political power of organized labor, unions were never the only protagonists of resistance from below. Historical accounts include numerous examples of struggles by working classes and other economically marginalized groups. Similar examples of non-union resistance from below are rampant in the contemporary period of widespread economic insecurity. Groups that scholars consider to be especially “precarious” or even “surplus” to global capitalism – the unemployed, part-time and temporary workers, those eking out a living through “informal” activities, etc. – are prominent within these struggles. These struggles from below often connect economic demands to issues of citizenship, nationalism, and community.

This session will focus on class struggles from below, broadly defined but excluding struggles by capitalists and elites, that are taking place outside of formal union organizations. While maintaining emphasis on class-related demands and issues such as wages, land, and basic livelihood, relevant struggles may include significant or even dominant non-class dimensions (e.g. citizenship). Informal social networks, community-based organizations, political parties, or other non-union entities are also relevant. The goal is to highlight and contrast non-union class struggles in different parts of the globe, with attention to the influence of varying local, national, and regional contexts.

Charles Tilly is among the most influential American sociologists of the last century. For the first time, his pathbreaking work on a wide array of topics is available in one comprehensive reader. This manageable and readable volume brings together many highlights of Tilly’s large and important oeuvre, covering his contribution to the following areas: revolutions and social change; war, state making, and organized crime; democratization; durable inequality; political violence; migration, race, and ethnicity; narratives and explanations.

The book connects Tilly’s work on large-scale social processes such as nation-building and war to his work on micro processes such as racial and gender discrimination. It includes selections from some of Tilly’s earliest, influential, and out of print writings, including The Vendée; Coercion, Capital and European States; the classic “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime;” and his more recent and lesser-known work, including that on durable inequality, democracy, poverty, economic development, and migration. Together, the collection reveals Tilly’s complex, compelling, and distinctive vision and helps place the contentious politics approach Tilly pioneered with Sidney Tarrow and Doug McAdam into broader context. The editors abridge key texts and, in their introductory essay, situate them within Tilly’s larger opus and contemporary intellectual debates. The chapters serve as guideposts for those who wish to study his work in greater depth or use his methodology to examine the pressing issues of our time. Read together, they provide a road map of Tilly’s work and his contribution to the fields of sociology, political science, history, and international studies. This book belongs in the classroom and in the library of social scientists, political analysts, cultural critics, and activists.

What happened to the American left after the sixties? Kauffman traces the evolution of disruptive protest over the last forty years to tell a larger story about the reshaping of American radicalism. It examines how movements from ACT UP to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter have catalyzed change against long odds, winning victories in times of crisis and backlash while creating a distinctive new kind of radical politics in the process. Based on decades of in-depth interviews, archival research, and firsthand experience.